Features

Our editorial board comprises a specialist group of leading industry figures who, in conjunction with the TUNNELS editorial team,
identify the main drivers of the industry helping to produce regular, thought provoking opinion pieces on the latest issues, challenges and developments.

Latest Tunnels Feature

Take two
26 May, 2020
Brent Scarbrough & Company stepped in to finish a job under an active highway and a high-pressure gas main. Chad Cox reports on jack and bore work in Florida
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The Avon House Case
19 May, 2020
Paola De Pascali talked with Paul Perry, associate director of Hewson consulting Engineers, about the infamous case of Avon House at the Bond Street Station Upgrade (BSSU) project and how it represents an example of sensitive building, which required a detailed investigation and mitigation measures

In the maze
19 May, 2020
Paola De Pascali spoke with the deputy project director at MMC-Gamuda Hau Wei Ng about the challenges being faced at the SSP Line in Kuala Lumpur

Grout or Slurry
14 May, 2020
Non-continuous pressurised TBM tunnelling with grouting offers great benefits over slurry when tunnelling through rock with the potential for high water pressure. Robbins owner Lok Home makes the case

Spotlight Seattle
14 May, 2020
The fast-growing city is under pressure to provide congestion relief to crowded streets and affordable housing. New tunnel projects are being designed to do both, Nicole Robinson reports.

Lifting from below
27 April, 2020
While the use of cranes underground may be limited, when they are used, specific adaptations are often required. Ian Vallely spoke to tunnelling experts about their requirements, and crane companies who’ve met these demands

BS 6164:2019
27 April, 2020
The British Standard for health and safety in tunnelling in the construction industry (BS6164) was revised last year. The man in charge of the project, Donald Lamont of Hyperbaric and Tunnel Safety, speaks with Alex Conacher

Hand arm vibration
27 April, 2020
Construction puts wellness and the protection of the workforce right at the top of the agenda. Why is no progress being made on the UK’s highest reported workplace disease: hand arm vibration syndrome? This report was prepared by Reactec, which develops systems to measure the problem.

Excavation starts on Lesotho tunnels
Following a halt due to Covid 19, work has now resumed on Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project with the start of excavation of two diversion tunnels on the Senqu River. The tunnels will not only enable the construction of the Polihali Dam, but also increase floodwater-carrying capacity and provide the ability to work in one tunnel while the river flows through the other.

Contracts awarded for Scheldt Tunnel
Antwerp-based infrastructure provider Lantis has awarded a €570M (USD634M) contract for the construction of the city’s Scheldt Tunnel to the COTU consortium of Belgian contractors. The third crossing across the river Scheldt will be constructed by Besix, Bam Contractors, Deme and Jan de Nul. ENGIE Fabricom is responsible for the design and realisation of the tunnel’s technical installations.

Balfour Beatty Gammon in Hong Kong tunnel win
Gammon Construction, Balfour Beatty’s 50:50 joint venture, has been awarded a HKD7.2bn (USD929m) contract to deliver tunnels and other associated works for an automatic people mover (APM) and baggage handling system (BHS) at Hong Kong International Airport.

Lower global demand forces Epiroc redundancies
Tunnelling and infrastructure technology provider Epiroc is to make 425 of its Sweden-based employees redundant. The move comes as a response to lower global demand from mining and infrastructure companies amid the Covid-19 pandemic and to “position the company better for the future”.

TBM naming exercise upsets residents
Locals in a few Chiltern villages in England are upset by operator HS2’s TBM-naming competition which, true to industry tradition, asks schools and the broader public to pick names from a shortlist. In the past, such exercises have generated much wider interest in engineering generally and in tunnelling specifically, allowing the public to discover details of inspiring technologies they might otherwise not have known about.